Changing the Formula

It has already started in the Cambridge City Council chambers at the regular Monday night meetings. After a year and a half of relative calm, the debates are increasingly marked with the pronouns "we" and "they". It is a reflection of the two factions in the council, and an indication that a municipal election is in the air.

Actually, nominating petitions are not even available until later this month, and they are not due back at the city's election commission until August. But politicking in Cambridge starts early and spreads far. In every biannual election, all nine city council seats are up for grabs. And this November 2 is made even more crucial by the fact that political control now rests in delicate balance between the progressive Cambridge Civic Association (CCA) and the more conservative, neighborhood-oriented Independents. Each bloc holds four seats, with Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci--the self-proclaimed "small i" independent and champion of the city's poor and elderly--as the swing vote.

With power so perilously poised between the two factions, the gain of a single seat by either camp would spell drastic changes in hotly debated city-wide policies such as zoning and rent control. So the release this spring of the first results from the 1980 census takes on special significance. The figures indicate that the racial balance, the occupational mix, and the number and type of homeowners have all changed substantially in the past decade. And while prognostication at this point is difficult because the statistics have yet to be broken down by neighborhood, city mavens agree that the shifts in demographic composition will surely repaint the political picture.

What is readily apparent from the census results is that the Cambridge of 1980 is vastly different from that of 1970. The process of "development"--or "gentrification," depending on the point of view is slowly creeping across the city. Blue-collar workers have slipped below 20 percent of the work force of a city once dominated by manufacturing. At the same time, single person and nonfamily households now outnumber family homes by more than 4000. Ten years ago, families owned 57 percent of all houses: today they control 45 percent. The change has come as upwardly mobile families are seeking houses farther away from metropolitan Boston.

The combination indicates "the demise of the neighborhoods" explains Martin C. Boster, former chairman of the city Democratic committee "If you go around to the neighborhoods where there used to be blue collar workers and people of color, they're not there anymore," adds City Councilor Saundra Graham.

Replacing the working-class families are the more transient paraprofessionals and other white-collar workers employed in metropolitan Boston. "Their political interests tend to be a lot different than families," says Foster. But city pols are unwilling to speculate about just what that change means.

On the one hand, these residents are generally well educated and take a progressive stand on most issues and consequently they should allign themselves with the CCA. But their principal aspiration is to buy a home. So, many are driven away from the liberal coalition, which boasts a housing policy that limits the number of homes for sale in order to present speculation particularly by condominium developers with low and moderate income housing. Much of the discussion of the power of the newly arrived paraprofessionals centers specifically on those who own condominiums. In 1970, no condos were counted in the census, the 1980 results indicate 2191 such units 10 years later. Some are occupied by tenants who purchased their apartments as condos; others are rented by the new white-collar crowd. But together they represent almost enough votes to elect a city councilor (2504 votes was enough in 1981).

"Over the long run, gentrification and development is sapping the political base of the Independent councilors," says Clifford Truesdell, secretary of the city committee. "But as...the last election shows, the condo vote may help them in the short term."

Two years ago, the "condo vote" landed squarely behind Mary Allen Wilkes, the "condo candidate," but Wilkes fell short of the total number of votes required by Cambridge's Hare proportional voting system. When she finally was eliminated in the tallying, most of her votes transferred to Independents (i.e. voters who supported Wilkes first, backed Independents as second choices). A major beneficiary was incumbent City Councilor Thomas W. Danehy, whose North Cambridge neighborhood is experiencing gentrification similar to that in the eastern sector of the city.

Most observers attribute the transfers to Independents to a single issue--the city's anti-conversion ordinance, passed in August 1981. Without the issue this time around, they say there will probably be no condo candidate and the votes are likely to be up for grabs.

How the condo bloc will vote in the absence of the particular condo candidate is unclear. "If they vote short-term anger, they will vote Independent," says Truesdell. "If they vote their long-term goals, they won't.

Truesdell was part of a campaign last November that demonstrated the strength of the new white-collar residents. As campaign manager for Peter A. Vellucci--the mayor's son--he helped engineer the newcomer's election as a state representative for the 29th Middlesex district, ousting 18-year incumbent Michael J. Lombardi, who based his re-election bid on an Independent-like platform of strong neighborhood organization and constituent service.

"Some gentrification is occurring in East Cambridge and you can expect that to continue," explains Truesdell. "Peter got almost all of the new vote."

In addition to the demographic shifts caused by gentrification, the cenus indicates that minorities particularly Blacks, have become a more important political force in Cambridge. Since 1960, the city's Black population has almost doubled, currently accounting for about 11 percent of the total population.

And some think that the national attention garnered by the election of Harold Washington as the first Black mayor of Chicago, and the recent victory of Black city administrator Wilson Goode over former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo in that city's Democratic mayoral primary, will help galvanize local voters.

Graham, currently the only Black and only woman on the council, explains that about 4000 of the city's 10,418 Blacks are eligible to vote and registration drives are planned for later in the year by the Cambridge NAACP chapter. "I really do believe that Chicago and Philadelphia have had an impact on Boston and Cambridge," she says.

But, she adds that it may be too soon for Cambridge Blacks to test their muscle in numbers. No other Black contender has yet joined the preliminary pack, and "if a minority candidate jumps in now, they're going to be getting in late."

Some observers feel that Black voters will never crystallize specifically to support a candidate of color. Minority voters in Cambridge, Foster says, "are more sophisticated than to vote along racial lines," despite the opportunities the proportional representation set-up creates.

On the bottom line, with so much to be lost and gained and so much time until November, most pundits register conservative prediction when discussing specific election results. "As long as there are incumbents running [as are all nine], they get elected," explains Graham. Foster adds that "you might see some new faces, but the balance of power will remain the same."

Over the long run, gentrification and development is sapping the political base of the Independent Councilors. Cambridge (by percentages)   1970  1980 Black Residents  6.8  10.9 Family Occupied Homes  18.6  22.9 Owner Occupied Homes  57.3  44.8